It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, November 20, 2020
Deep learning helps robots grasp and move objects with ease
Combining neural networks with motion planning software gives robots the speed and skill to assist in warehouse environments
IMAGE: UC BERKELEY RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED NEW ROBOTICS SOFTWARE THAT COMBINES DEEP LEARNING NEURAL NETWORKS WITH MOTION PLANNING OPTIMIZATION TO RAPIDLY COMPUTE HOW TO QUICKLY AND SMOOTHLY GRASP AND MOVE OBJECTS. view more
CREDIT: UC BERKELEY PHOTO BY ADAM LAU
Berkeley -- In the past year, lockdowns and other COVID-19 safety measures have made online shopping more popular than ever, but the skyrocketing demand is leaving many retailers struggling to fulfill orders while ensuring the safety of their warehouse employees.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created new artificial intelligence software that gives robots the speed and skill to grasp and smoothly move objects, making it feasible for them to soon assist humans in warehouse environments. The technology is described in a paper published online today (Wednesday, Nov. 18) in the journal Science Robotics.
Automating warehouse tasks can be challenging because many actions that come naturally to humans -- like deciding where and how to pick up different types of objects and then coordinating the shoulder, arm and wrist movements needed to move each object from one location to another -- are actually quite difficult for robots. Robotic motion also tends to be jerky, which can increase the risk of damaging both the products and the robots.
"Warehouses are still operated primarily by humans, because it's still very hard for robots to reliably grasp many different objects," said Ken Goldberg, William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study. "In an automobile assembly line, the same motion is repeated over and over again, so that it can be automated. But in a warehouse, every order is different."
In earlier work, Goldberg and UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Jeffrey Ichnowski created a Grasp-Optimized Motion Planner that could compute both how a robot should pick up an object and how it should move to transfer the object from one location to another.
However, the motions generated by this planner were jerky. While the parameters of the software could be tweaked to generate smoother motions, these calculations took an average of about half a minute to compute.
In the new study, Goldberg and Ichnowski, in collaboration with UC Berkeley graduate student Yahav Avigal and undergraduate student Vishal Satish, dramatically sped up the computing time of the motion planner by integrating a deep learning neural network.
Neural networks allow a robot to learn from examples. Later, the robot can often generalize to similar objects and motions.
However, these approximations aren't always accurate enough. Goldberg and Ichnowski found that the approximation generated by the neural network could then be optimized using the motion planner.
"The neural network takes only a few milliseconds to compute an approximate motion. It's very fast, but it's inaccurate," Ichnowski said. "However, if we then feed that approximation into the motion planner, the motion planner only needs a few iterations to compute the final motion."
By combining the neural network with the motion planner, the team cut average computation time from 29 seconds to 80 milliseconds, or less than one-tenth of a second.
Goldberg predicts that, with this and other advances in robotic technology, robots could be assisting in warehouse environments in the next few years.
"Shopping for groceries, pharmaceuticals, clothing and many other things has changed as a result of COVID-19, and people are probably going to continue shopping this way even after the pandemic is over," Goldberg said. "This is an exciting new opportunity for robots to support human workers."
A video on the project is available from the contacts below. This work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation's National Robotics Initiative Award #1734633: Scalable Collaborative Human-Robot Learning (SCHooL) and by donations from Google and the Toyota Research Institute Inc.
IMAGE: AN ARRAY OF SOYBEANS FROM THE U.S. NATIONAL SOYBEAN COLLECTION IN URBANA, ILLINOIS. view more
CREDIT: ELIOT HERMAN
Food allergies are a big problem. About 7% of children and 2% of adults in the U.S. suffer from some kind of food allergy. These allergies cost a whopping $25 billion in health care each year. Then there's the time lost at school or work. And there's the risk of serious complications, even death.
It's critical to find ways to reduce the suffering caused by food allergies. Food processing companies already spend a lot of effort to label products so people can avoid items they're allergic to. But what if we could do better? What if we could enjoy the foods we like without worrying they might trigger a health crisis?
"Food allergies are an important societal issue. By altering food and by treating sensitive individuals, this can be mitigated, improving their lives and impacting the total medical expenditure in the U.S.," says Herman.
Herman focuses particularly on soybeans. Soybean allergies especially affect children and infants. And because soybean products like oil and protein are used in countless food products, it's hard to avoid.
Earlier in his career, Herman found the protein made by soybeans that is responsible for most soybean allergies. Now, he has dedicated his work to understanding why this protein is so aggravating and how we can reduce it in the crop.
To do so, he's turning to animal models. Pigs sometimes have a soybean allergy very similar to that of humans. Herman worked with a research team that bred pigs that are extra sensitive to soybeans. Testing new crops on allergic children wouldn't be possible. But these pigs can be used to see how well plant breeders have done at removing allergenic proteins from soybean seeds.
That's a feat that Herman has done not once, but twice. Previously, Herman partnered with the company DuPont to produce a line of soybeans that couldn't make the most allergenic protein.
They made this soybean line using genetic engineering. This new soybean was a genetically modified organism (GMO), and there was also demand for a non-GMO soybean without the allergenic protein.
So Herman went back to the drawing board. He worked with his colleagues to find a line from the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) national soybean collection that naturally didn't make the allergenic protein. That means no genetic engineering would be necessary. They then crossed that line of soybeans with a more commonly grown soybeans to create a new, productive soybean with reduced allergic sensitivity.
"This new soybean is intended to be a low-allergen prototype to be tested as a conventional, non-GMO line to mitigate the allergic response for consumers," says Herman.
The hypersensitive pigs can now be used to test if these low-allergen soybeans are safe enough for allergic individuals. That wouldn't only be good for allergic people who want to safely eat more items from the grocery store. It would also be good news for animals.
Since pigs are often fed soybeans, a low-allergen soybean could reduce their own allergic response. Dogs also have a high prevalence of allergic reactions to soybean, which is used in some dog foods. So reducing the crop's allergenicity would be good for man's best friend, too.
"Food has been recognized as medicine since ancient times. By reducing soybean's allergens, we hope to produce positive a medical outcome for humans and animals," says Herman.
CAPTION
A pig highly allergic to soybeans shows a strong response to an injection of allergenic protein (left, bottom right), while a less allergic pig only shows a response at the injection site (top right). Pigs can be useful models of soybean allergy in people to help test low-allergenicity versions of soybeans.
Eliot Herman is a professor of plant sciences and Bio5 Institute at the University of Arizona. This work was funded by United Soybean Board and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
CAPTION
Eliot Herman with soybean plants in his greenhouse in Tucson, Arizona.
Are high-protein total diet replacements the key to maintaining healthy weight?
Study results published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggest that these diets are a promising nutritional strategy to combat rising rates of obesity
IMAGE: OVERVIEW OF THE EXPERIMENTAL PROTOCOL (A) AND VARIABLES ASSESSED DURING EACH 32-H TEST (B). CON, CONTROL DIET; EE, ENERGY EXPENDITURE; HP-TDR, HIGH-PROTEIN TOTAL DIET REPLACEMENT; N/A, NOT APPLICABLE; REE, RESTING... view more
CREDIT: THE AUTHORS
Key Points
High-protein total diet replacement products are widely available to consumers; however, their efficacy has not been adequately studied.
AJCN study compared the impact of a high-protein total diet replacement to that of a typical North American diet on key components of energy metabolism.
The high-protein total diet replacement compared to the North American diet resulted in higher energy expenditure, increased fat oxidation and negative fat balance, likely implying body fat loss.
Diets with a higher proportion of protein might offer a metabolic advantage compared to a diet consisting of the same number of calories, but with a lower proportion of protein.
Future studies are needed to better understand the long-term effects of high-protein total diet replacements on both healthy and diseased population groups.
Rockville, MD According to the World Health Organization, obesity has nearly tripled worldwide since 1975. In 2016, for example, more than 1.9 billion adults were categorized as overweight. Of these, more than 650 million had obesity. Because obesity is associated with a higher incidence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers, the rise in its incidence has led to a global public health emergency.
Total diet replacements, nutritionally complete formula foods designed to replace the whole diet for a set period of time, have become increasingly popular strategies to combat obesity. Another popular weight management strategy are high-protein diets, which have been shown to promote weight loss and weight maintenance by increasing our sense of fullness, energy expenditure, and ability to maintain or increase fat-free mass. Taken together, the combination of a total diet replacement with a high-protein diet may be a promising strategy for weight management. In fact, several high-protein total diet replacement products are widely available to consumers. The question is do they work?
That's the core question addressed by the authors of "A High-Protein Total Diet Replacement Increases Energy Expenditure and Leads to Negative Fat Balance in Healthy, Normal-Weight Adults," published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In their study, the authors compared the impact of a high-protein total diet replacement to that of a control diet, a typical North American diet, on selected components of energy metabolism. Lead author, Camila Oliveira, a doctoral student at the University of Alberta, noted, "considering the prevalence of obesity worldwide and its impact on health, it's not surprising nutritional strategies such as total diet replacements and high-protein diets are becoming increasingly popular as weight management strategies; however, research around these topics has not kept pace with their growth in popularity."
In order to conduct their experiment, the authors recruited a group of healthy, normal-weight adults between the ages of 18 and 35 via advertisements placed on notice boards at the University of Alberta, Canada. Subjects were then randomly assigned into one of two groups: one group was fed the high-protein total diet replacement, which consisted of 35% carbohydrate, 40% protein, and 25% fat. The second group, the control group, was fed a diet with the same number of calories, but consisting of 55% carbohydrate, 15% protein, and 30% fat, a typical North American dietary pattern. Participants received the prescribed diets for a 32-hour period while inside a metabolic chamber.
Compared to the standard North American dietary pattern, the findings of this inpatient metabolic balance study revealed that the high-protein total diet replacement led to "higher energy expenditure, increased fat oxidation, and negative fat balance." In particular, the results of the study provide further evidence that a calorie is not just a calorie. That is, a diet with a higher proportion of protein might lead to an increase in energy expenditure and fat oxidation compared to a diet consisting of the same number of calories, but with a lower proportion of protein as well as a higher proportion of carbohydrate or fat.
Dr. Carla Prado, Professor, University of Alberta and the study's principal investigator, commented, "although these results are restricted to a specific population of healthy, normal-weight adults, they can help nutrition scientists and healthcare providers better understand the real physiological effects of a high-protein total diet replacement in humans. In our opinion, it is imperative to first understand the physiological impact of a high-protein total diet replacement in a healthy population group so that the effects are better translated in individuals with obesity and its related comorbidities."
In summary, the results of this study suggest that high-protein total diet replacements may be a promising nutritional strategy to combat rising rates of obesity. Lead author Camila Oliveira added, "future studies are needed to better understand the long-term effects of this dietary intervention on the physiology of both healthy and diseased population groups."
###
Reference
Oliveira CLP, Boulé NG, Sharma AM, Elliott SA, Siervo M, Ghosh S, Berg A, Prado CM. A high-protein total diet replacement increases energy expenditure and leads to negative fat balance in healthy, normal-weight adults. Am J Clin Nutr 2020 Nov 18 (Epub ahead of print; DOI: doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqaa283).
About The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
The most highly rated peer-reviewed, primary research journal in nutrition and dietetics, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) publishes the latest research on topics in nutrition such as obesity, vitamins and minerals, nutrition and disease, and energy metabolism. Visit us online at academic.oup.com/ajcn or follow us on Twitter @AJCNutrition. #AJCN
About the American Society for Nutrition
ASN is the preeminent professional organization for nutrition research scientists and clinicians around the world. Founded in 1928, the society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition. ASN advances excellence in nutrition research and practice through its publications, education, public affairs, membership programs, and annual meeting, Nutrition. Visit ASN online at nutrition.org.
System can sterilize medical tools using solar heat
Device could provide pressurized steam to run autoclaves without the need for electricity in off-grid areas.
IMAGE: AUTOCLAVES, WHICH ARE USED TO STERILIZE MEDICAL TOOLS, REQUIRE A STEADY SUPPLY OF HOT, PRESSURIZED STEAM. RESEARCHERS AT MIT AND THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY HAVE COME UP WITH A... view more
CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE RESEARCHERS. EDITED BY MIT NEWS.
Autoclaves, the devices used to sterilize medical tools in hospitals, clinics, and doctors' and dentists' offices, require a steady supply of pressurized steam at a temperature of about 125 degrees Celsius. This is usually provided by electrical or fuel-powered boilers, but in many rural areas, especially in the developing world, power can be unreliable or unavailable, and fuel is expensive.
Now, a team of researchers at MIT and the Indian Institute of Technology has come up with a way to generate the needed steam passively, using just the power of sunlight, with no need for fuel or electricity. The device, which would require a solar collector of about 2 square meters (or yards) to power a typical small-clinic autoclave, could maintain safe, sterile equipment at low cost in remote locations. A prototype was successfully tested in Mumbai, India.
The system is described in the journal Joule, in a paper by MIT graduate student Lin Zhao, MIT Professor Evelyn Wang, MIT Professor Gang Chen, and 10 others at MIT and IIT Bombay.
The key to the new system is the use of optically transparent aerogel, a material developed over the last few years by Wang and her collaborators. The material is essentially a lightweight foam made of silica, the material of beach sand, and consists mostly of air. Light as it is, the material provides effective thermal insulation, reducing the rate of heat loss by tenfold.
This transparent insulating material is bonded onto the top of what is essentially off-the-shelf equipment for producing solar hot water, which consists of a copper plate with a heat-absorbing black coating, bonded to a set of pipes on the underside. As the sun heats the plate, water flowing through the pipes underneath picks up that heat. But with the addition of the transparent insulating layer on top, plus polished aluminum mirrors on each side of the plate to direct extra sunlight at the plate, the system can generate high-temperature steam instead of just hot water. The system uses gravity to feed water from a tank into the plate; the steam then rises to the top of the enclosure and is fed out through another pipe, which carries the pressurized steam to the autoclave. A steady supply of steam must be maintained for 30 minutes to achieve proper sterilization.
Since much of the developing world faces limited availability of reliable electricity or affordable fuel, "we saw this as an opportunity to think about how we can potentially create a low-cost, passive, solar-driven system to generate steam, at the conditions that are necessary for autoclaving or for medical sterilization," explains Wang, who is the Gail E. Kendall Professor of Mechanical Engineering and head of the mechanical engineering department.
Being able to test the system in Mumbai was a bonus, she says, because of the city's "relevance and importance" as the type of location that might benefit from such low-cost steam-generation equipment.
In the Mumbai tests, even though the sky was hazy and cloudy, providing only 70 percent insolation compared to a sunny day, the device succeeded in producing the saturated steam needed for sterilization for the required half hour period.
The test was carried out with a small-scale unit, only about a quarter of a square meter, about the size of a hand towel, but it showed that the steam production rate was sufficient that a similar unit of somewhere between 1 and 3 square meters would be sufficient to power a benchtop autoclave of the kind typically used in a doctor's office, Zhao says.
The main limiting factor for practical deployment of such devices is the availability of the aerogel material. One company, founded by Elise Strobach PhD '20, who is a co-author of this paper, is already attempting to scale up the production of transparent aerogel, for use in high thermal efficiency windows. But so far the material is only produced in small amounts using relatively expensive laboratory-grade supercritical drying equipment, so widespread adoption of such a sterilization system is likely still a few years off, the researchers say.
Since the other components, except for the aerogel itself, are already widely available at low cost throughout the developing world, fabrication and maintenance of such systems may ultimately be practical in the areas where they would be used. The parts needed for the quarter-square-meter prototype came to less than $40, Zhao says, so a system sufficient for a typical small autoclave would be likely to cost $160 or so, once the necessary aerogel material becomes commercialized. "If we can get the supply of aerogel, the whole thing can be built locally, with local suppliers," he says.
The process could also be used for a variety of other purposes, the team says. For example, many food and beverage processing systems rely on high-temperature steam, which is typically provided by fossil-fuel powered boilers. Passive solar-powered systems to deliver that steam would eliminate the fuel costs, and so could be an attractive option in many industries, they say.
Ultimately, such systems should be much more cost-effective than systems that concentrate sunlight by tenfold or more to generate steam, because those require expensive mirrors and mountings, as opposed to the simplicity of this aerogel-based approach.
"This is a significant advance," says Ravi Prasher, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and an associate director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who was not involved in this work. "Generating high-temperature steam with high energy efficiency has been a challenge. Here the authors have achieved both."
"The quality of the research is very high," Prasher adds. "Access to passive sterilization techniques for low-income communities who do not have access to reliable electricity is a big deal. Therefore, the passive solar device developed by the MIT team is very significant in that regard."
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The research team also included Bikram Bhatia, Lenan Zhang, Arny Leroy, Sungwoo Yang, Thomas Cooper, and Lee Weinstein at MIT, and Manoj Yadav, Anish Modi, and Shireesh Kedsare at IIT Bombay. The work received support from the Tata Center at MIT and from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Written by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office
Portable solar-powered device for sterilizing medical equipment in the field
VIDEO: THE VIDEO SHOWS THE FIELD TEST SETUP IN MUMBAI, INDIA, AND HOW STEAM WAS GENERATED CONTINUOUSLY DURING EXPERIMENTS view more
CREDIT: LIN ZHAO
By integrating a transparent, cloud-like aerogel with a solar heater, scientists can now efficiently trap solar energy to generate steam that is hot enough and at high enough pressure for sterilizing medical instruments even under hazy and partly cloudy weather. The solar thermal device, reported November 18 in the journal Joule, may help alleviate infection-related healthcare burden and facilitate the adoption of solar energy as a potential power source in resource-limited regions.
Almost like a pressure cooker with high temperature and high pressure, devices called autoclaves are used to cook germs at 121°C (249.8°F) and 205 kPa as a standard medical equipment sterilization procedure. However, due to the heat loss to the environment, traditional solar heaters have difficulties reaching temperatures above boiling point. In the new study, the research team incorporated a thermal insulating aerogel into the solar thermal device to reduce the escaping heat, allowing the device to generate 128°C (262.4°F) and 250 kPa steam for sterilization.
"When we were doing the field research in India, many healthcare providers said that they can operate an autoclave if there is reliable energy, but there are certain occasions where the electricity is unavailable," said first author Lin Zhao of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who conducted a field study in Mumbai, India. "They are then forced to use maybe unsterilized equipment, or they have to use some rudimentary method like boiling water to try to sterilize things. A solar-powered device, in that case, would certainly be helpful to them."
Unlike other steam-generating solar thermal devices, which rely on solar tracking that requires operators to concentrate sunlight, the team's device is stationary, more user friendly, and energy efficient. In the field test, the aerogel-aided device generated steam at 100°C (212°F) with more than two times higher energy efficiency than other solar thermal devices reported in the lab. It also successfully performed standard sterilization under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines.
"As long as you have sunlight, you can use this device. It doesn't have to rely on well-built infrastructure. You can use it off-grid in remote areas," said Zhao. But like other solar-powered gadgets, it also has a limit--cloudy and rainy days. "It really depends on your location. If you're in a sunny area, our device may offer more benefits."
Zhao and his colleagues' device also has a lower price tag, and most of its components are commercially available in the solar water heater industry. Compared to benchtop autoclaves on the market, which can cost up to $3,000, the researchers' device costs about $35 per unit. Three to six units of the prototype device can sufficiently power a benchtop autoclave, demonstrating its potential as an inexpensive and accessible approach to reduce infection in remote and developing regions. The next step for the research team is to manufacture the aerogel in high quantity and quality.
"The real 'secret sauce' or the enabling factor is the transparent aerogel. Once we have the aerogel scaled up, we can think about providing the device to people who need it, such as channels like NGOs and other organizations," said Zhao. "We can also think about using the same technology for larger-scale applications. For example, food processing plants and chemical plants, they use boilers steam generators too."
CAPTION
This image shows scientists from MIT evaluating the device's performance in "real world" situation, set up in a field research site in Mumbai, India.
This work was supported by the MIT Tata Center for Technology + Design, IIT Bombay, and the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences.
This image shows the transparent, cloud-like, thermal aerogel insulating the solar-driven autoclave.
Joule (@Joule_CP), published monthly by Cell Press, is a new home for outstanding and insightful research, analysis, and ideas addressing the need for more sustainable energy. A sister journal to Cell, Joule spans all scales of energy research, from fundamental laboratory research into energy conversion and storage to impactful analysis at the global level. Visit http://www.cell.com/joule. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
Suicidal risk during pregnancy, after childbirth on the rise
Study finds prevalence of suicidal thoughts and self-harm among childbearing women nearly tripled over a decade, with an estimated 24,000 individuals at potential suicide risk
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Pregnancy and the period after delivering a baby can be one of the riskiest times for depressive symptoms, with suicide among the leading causes of death among new moms.
And now a new study suggests that suicide "near misses" during pregnancy and after childbirth are increasing.
The prevalence of suicidal thoughts and self-harm in the year before and after giving birth nearly tripled among childbearing people between 2006 and 2017, according to the findings in JAMA Psychiatry.
The greatest increases were seen among Black, low-income, and younger individuals, along with people with comorbid anxiety and depression or serious mental illness.
"Suicide deaths are a leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S. It's a public health crisis that has silently grown worse," says lead author Lindsay Admon, M.D., M.Sc., an obstetrician-gynecologist at Michigan Medicine Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital and researcher with the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
Researchers evaluated data from the Maternal Behavioral Health Policy Evaluation (MAPLE) study to evaluate suicidality trends among individuals aged 15-44 in the year before and following birth.
Of 595,237 commercially insured childbearing individuals across the U.S., 2,683 had either suicidal ideation or self-harm.
Maternal suicidality overall increased from 0.2 to 0.6 percent among people giving birth. That could translate to nearly 24,000 individuals among the estimated 4 million who give birth a year.
But these are likely underestimates, Admon says, since research suggests that depressive problems may be even higher among those who are on Medicaid - a population not included in the study.
Particularly notable increases in suicidality were identified among those who were non-Hispanic Black, in younger age categories, and with the lowest household incomes. For instance, suicidality increased from affecting 0.2 to 0.9% of the non-Hispanic Black population over the study period, affecting 1% of the population by 2017.
Suicidality also increased from impacting 1.6 to 9.5% of those aged 15-18 over the study period, affecting 10% of the population by 2017.
The absolute greatest risks for suicidality appeared among those with serious mental health diagnoses and substance abuse disorders.
Identifying Maternal Suicidality
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among women 25-34 years of age, and has steadily increased in prevalence since 2001. However, mental health is not captured in data used to study maternal morbidity and mortality, which has increased in the U.S.
Researchers and national committees have examined "near misses" to understand how to prevent maternal death. But psychiatric near misses, such as suicidal ideation or intentional self-harm, remain excluded from standard severe maternal morbidity measures.
"Suicide in the perinatal period represents an important but understudied health outcome," says senior author Kara Zivin, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan.
Numbers can be hard to pinpoint, she notes. Maternal mortality statistics reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) excludes suicide deaths, deeming them "incidental or accidental" rather than pregnancy-related.
But a report using data from 14 maternal mortality review committees documented suicide as comprising 8.8% of maternal deaths from 2008-2017.
The new research follows another recent U-M-led study finding that over the past decade (2006-2019), the prevalence of both perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and serious mental illness among delivering women increased substantially across the United States.
Women with these conditions experienced a higher incidence of severe maternal morbidity and mortality, and increased hospital transfers and lengths of stay.
"The increases and disparities in suicidality over time, and the likelihood that suicidality is both under detected and under treated remains concerning," says Zivin, also senior author on the previous study and who personally struggled with suicidality during her own pregnancy a decade ago.
"This research indicates we have more policy and clinical work to do to support struggling women and their families."
Pregnancy is an especially unique time when women are in more frequent contact with health providers, authors note, potentially increasing opportunities to identify depressive symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum.
"We need to improve screening for mental health wellness during and after pregnancy," Admon says. "We know that untreated mental health conditions put both moms and their children at higher risk for adverse health outcomes, including preterm birth and maternal suicide."
Policymakers, health plans, and clinicians should ensure access to universal suicidality screening and appropriate treatment for pregnant and postpartum individuals, particularly for high-risk groups, she says. Clinical and policy interventions should also be tailored to meet the specific needs of individuals.
"We need to seek health system and policy avenues to better identify suicidal symptoms in childbearing women, "Admon says. "It's critical that we intervene as early as possible and provide necessary therapies to reduce the risk of the most tragic outcome."
Paper Cited: Trends in Suicidality 1 Year Before and After Birth Among Commercially Insured Childbearing Individuals in the United States, 2006-2017," JAMA Psychiatry, doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.3550
RIGHT WING ECHO CHAMBER
Poll: 66% of Republican Voters Say Presidential Race Was 'Not' Free and Fair Election By Michael W. Chapman | November 18, 2020 | CNS (Getty Images)
(CNS News) -- A national poll by Politico/Morning Consult shows that 66% of Republicans believe that the Trump-Biden presidential race was "not" a "free and fair election." In addition, 72% of all registered voters who thought the race was unfair think "mail-in voting led to widespread vote fraud."
The extensive survey, conducted Nov. 13-16, asked 71 questions of 1,994 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 2 percentage points.
Among the questions, the survey asked, "As far as you know, do you believe the 2020 presidential election was a free and fair election?"
(Politico/Morning Consult)
In response, 24% of Republican/Leans Republican voters said "no, probably not" and 42% said "no, definitely not," which totals 66% saying the election was not free and fair.
Only 30% of Republicans disagreed, saying the election was fair.
For the Democrat/Leans Democrat registered voters, 90% said "yes," the election was free and fair.
The survey also asked, "You mentioned that you don’t believe the 2020 presidential election was a free and fair election. Why, specifically, do you think the election was not free and fair? Please select all that apply. Mail-in voting led to widespread voter fraud." (Politico/Morning Consult)
In this instance, 77% of the Republican/Leans Republican voters selected mail-in voting as the reason for widespread voter fraud.
Also, among all registered voters who believe the election was not fair, 72% selected mail-in voting as the problem. In that same group, 70% also selected "ballots were tampered with" as a reason contributing to the unfair election. (Politico/Morning Consult)
Commenting on the poll, professor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley said, "The poll shows how little penetration and credibility the media now have with much of the public. Over half of the public still want to see the [legal] challenges resolved despite the steady drumbeat of the media to denounce any challenges or the need for them to be fully addressed in the courts.
"For four years, the media has dispensed with any sense of neutrality and openly supported the Biden campaign," he said. "Reporters are now invested in the various narratives put forward by the Biden camp and their coverage reflects that bias. The result is shown in this poll."
FOX NEWS FAVORITE ACADEMIC LAWYER Jonathan Turley, who holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School. (Getty Images)
Turley continued, "What the poll really shows is an unresolved divide and no real avenue to breach that divide. I expect that those favoring a concession will rise in the coming days absent some major new challenge. However, the unrelenting biased coverage will likely undermine the confidence of many voters."
"That will only work to the disadvantage of Biden and the country going forward," said Turley. "What concerns me is that we have missed the best opportunity to come together as a nation by supporting a full and open review of the election."
WHO LIKES AND JUSTIFIES FASCISM IN HUNGARY? Hungary Proposes Amendment to Protect Children's Biological 'Sex' and 'Christian' Upbringing
US EVANGELICAL CONSERVATIVES By Michael W. Chapman | November 19, 2020 | CNS Hungary's Minister of Justice Judit Varga. (Facebook)
The pro-family Hungarian government (SIC) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would protect the biological sex of children, male or female, and seek to ensure that their upbringing is based on Christian culture.
The proposed amendment was introduced to the Hungarian Parliament on Nov. 10 by Minister of Justice Judit Varga.
As reported in The Guardian, the amendment states, “Hungary protects children’s right to identify as the sex they were born with, and ensures their upbringing based on our national self-identification and Christian culture.” (Getty Images)
The amendment also reads, "Hungary protects the institution of marriage, which is based on a consensual union between a woman and a man, and protects the family as the basis on which the nation can survive. The basis of relationships within a family is marriage, as well as the relationship between parents and children. The father is a man, the mother is a woman."
It further states that only heterosexual couples may adopt children.
In explaining the reason for the amendment, its language says that “new, modern ideologies in the western world raise doubt about the creation of the male and female sex, and endanger the right of children to have healthy development.”
Justice Minister Varga said that Hungary's constitution is a "living framework that protects the identity of the Hungarians, expresses its value system, embodies its will and defines the most basic public law forms of its existence. It defines the family, our descendants and the national culture as values to be protected." (Getty Images)
"I want everyone to understand that the rights of our children must not be undermined by pressure from certain interest groups or ideological trends," she said, as reported by Remix News.
"The Constitution should reflect the child's right to self-identity according to the sex of birth, and such a guarantee is the state's way to ensure education in line with Hungary's self-identity and Christian culture," said Varga.
The Hungarian government is led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a member of the conservative Hungarian Civic Alliance Party. He first became prime minister in 2010. Orban is a member of the Calvinist Hungarian Reformed Church. His wife and five children are Catholic.
